The Gods Read the Lightning Thief
by QueenoftheBlackOrder
Summary: The Fates decide that the gods are acting to childishly and bickering too much, so they send in some books about a certain demigod to change the future for the better.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan so no matter how hard I try, I don't own anything.**

**This is my first story, so I apologize ahead of time if there are mistakes from using the website.**

It was a cold day in New York. Thunder clapped, darkness was coming out of every crack, and the waves pounded against the beaches. You can guess, the Winter Solstice has begun.

"MY DAUGHTER DOES NOT DESERVE YOU!"

"I HAVE TOLD YOU COUNTLESS TIMES DEMETER: SHE CHOSE TO STAY WITH ME!" *huffs in annoyance*

"YOU CHEATED ON ME AGAIN; I SHOULD GO SMITE THAT MORTAL THIS INSTANT!"

"LITTLE SIS, YOU KNOW YOU LOVE ME!"

"I'M NOT YOUR LITTLE SIS, SO STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

"HERMES WHERE IS MY WALLET, AGAIN!"

In a spectacular flash of light the Three Fates appeared before the gods. "Look at you, your fighting again, neglecting your children, that is why you are going to see what happens if you keep this childish behavior up."

In another light they were gone leave a box and a note.

"Hermes! Open the box and read the note." Zeus thundered. Which I might say had some rolls of eyes and two face palms from Hades and Poseidon.

_Dear Gods,_

_We hope you can learn from these books, no killing or maiming the children, since they are innocent. All the children are currently at a young age in the mortal world. You are going to read about a young demigod named Percy Jackson._

_With a lot of sincerity,_

_The Fates_

"What! We're here to read _books_?" Apollo whined.

"Yes, is there a problem with that?" Athena said threateningly.

"No ma'am,"

"So let me get this straight," Ares bellowed, "we're being confined into an extra long solstice, with the man in black to read books about a punk who's going to be pulverized before his time."

There was a mixture of responses:

"Yes." was the general response, but there also was "Man in Black?" and then "How can you say that the boy doesn't even know who he is and by the way, he's innocent!"

"Poseidon?" Zeus and Hades said threateningly, "Why do you care about the fate of the boy?"

"Um, I have a knack for helping demigods?" he stuttered.

"Very well, that's to be seen," Hades answered.

"How can you say that!" Zeus yelled. "Your the one who my daughter is A TREE because of..."

"Stop fighting!" Hestia yelled. Which startled everyone, she was so quiet no one knew she was there.

"May I see the first book?" Athena asked. "Hmmm, the Lightning Thief."

"Someone stole my Master Bolt, I will send them to Tartarus and back, then throw them back down there!" Zeus thundered.

"Um, dad, it hasn't happened yet." Hermes said in the 'duh' tone.

"Anyways," Athena read, "**I Accidentally Vaporize my Pre-Algebra Teacher"**

**Look, I didn't want to be a half blood. **

"Not a lot of people do." Artemis said randomly, "Which is why more people should join the Hunters."

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. **

"Well, okay." Apollo made a move to get up.

"I dare you." Artemis returned.

Hestia sighed. More fighting. "Athena, read."

**Believe whatever lie you mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe none of this ever happened.**

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

"I've always wondered that." Hermes moaned, "How come when you discover you're a half-blood your scent grows?"

"Moving on." Athena said.

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"You didn't warn me!" Apollo and Hermes said in perfect unison.

"Do you know what could fix not having to warn people, cereal." Demeter took a deep breath as if about to rant...

"Athena! Please! If you value your life! For all the gods within a mile radius read!" Hades yelled.

Apollo was wondering what radius meant.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"No it's Peter Johnson." Dionysus replied casually.

"You're paying attention?" Hephaestus said, rather surprised.

"Of course not, Hephae-zzzzz" Dionysus fell asleep.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

"Is the punk admitting that he's troubled?" Ares questioned.

"One page, that is all I have asked for, one page!" Athena yelled.

"A-N-G-E-R I-S-S-U-E-S." Poseidon dragged on.

"You want to go, Barnacle Beard?"

"Bird Brain."

"Salt Breath."

"Bookworm."

"Barnacle encrusted god."

"Bird Brain."

"You've already said that!" Athena screamed.

"Moving on!" Zeus and the rest of the world yelled.

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"Most likely." was the general response.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

"Hah," Artemis pointed out, "Every male is."

"You know you love us little sis!"

"I'm not your little sis!"

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when out sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan-twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus,**

"That wasn't a good idea." Hades mumbled. Many of the gods looked up in surprise. They had forgot he was there.

** heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"That sounds amazing!" Athena interrupted herself.

"Sounds like torture." Poseidon replied.

"First of all," Athena lectures, "It's not torture, it's educational-"

"My point!"

"-it's amazing, so deal with it."

"Athena sassed you, Uncle P." Apollo added.

**I know-it sounds like torture.**

_This boy sounds like Poseidon, _Athena thought, _but that's impossible, he made an oath..._

**Most Yancy field trips were. But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading tis trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"Sounds like Chiron." Dionysus said sleepily.

**I hoped this trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

"Punks afraid of danger." Ares said, to say at least, he got splashed.

"Why again do you care so much, Poseidon?" Zeus asked forcefully.

"Umm, comic relief?"

**Boy, was I wrong.**

Poseidon paled, and Athena started to add up all of the details.

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

Some of the gods were rolling around on the floor. *cough* Apollo and Hermes *cough* *cough*

"This kid is pure gold!" They said in perfect unison.

"Hmmm," Athena pondered, "Is he one of your kids?"

"I wish he was."

"Daddy," Athena said in a sing-song voice, "I think I know Percy's parent is. It's Poseidon."

"POSEIDON!" Zeus and Hades yelled.

"For one, Zeus you already have a child, and you know we're not allowed to be messing with the demigods."

"You just said something smart!" Athena stutter. "A male just said something smart!" Artemis followed.

"Hey, I can say smart stuff."

"Once in a blue moon." Athena returned.

"What?"

"Exactly.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.**

Apollo and Hermes were on the floor laughing.

"Your son is despicable, Poseidon." Hera scolded.

** And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"No!" rang all throughout Olympus.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"No!" rang all throughout Olympus, again.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl,**

"One of yours?" someone said.

"No!" Hermes yelled.

"You know what could fix her up, cereal." Demeter said 'thoughtfully'

** hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter and ketchup sandwich.**

"Ewww!" Aphrodite shrieked, "Who eats peanut butter and ketchup, anyways?"

Lets just say the Olympians had to replace many shattered windows.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. he must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all of that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Dumb satyr, going to blow his cover, hey, new wine on sale!" Dionysus yelled like a cheerleader.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death **

"What!" Poseidon yelled, incredibly pale.

"It says more, kelp brain." Athena replied, smirking as she read the next line.

**by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Oh," Poseidon whispered.

Everyone laughed, even Hades cracked a smile.

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"DO IT, DO IT, DO IT. . ." Ares chanted. He got hit in the back of the head with a stiletto heel.

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"But in your hair?!" Aphrodite questioned, disgusted.

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"No!" Ares yelled, on his knees.

"Must run in the family," Poseidon told Hades.

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. **

"He would hit a girl?" Artemis questioned. Finally, a male who didn't see girls as helpless beings!

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

Poseidon paled.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the echoey**

"Echoey is not a word!" Athena yelled.

"Bird Brain, you're talking to the book.

"Shut up."

** galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer than that." Zeus said.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. he told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say,**

"A sea spawn is trying to listen, *gasp*." Athena, Hades, and Zeus all said.

** because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

_Why does that sound familiar, _Hades thought, _oh, man, Poseidon's going to kill me, and I hate to admit it, but he's frightening when he's angry._

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. **

Athena started to catch on, _I hope Hades has figured it out._

**She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"Probably caused it." Apollo said brightly.

Poseidon's eyes narrowed at Hades.

**From the first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was the devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"That is evil in its purest form." Hermes said, looking genuinely afraid.

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Once again," Dionysus said lazily, "Stupid satyr's going to blow his cover."

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele,**

"Oh, grow up," Hestia said warmly, "even Aphrodite is more mature than that."

"Exactly," Aphrodite said with a hair flip, "Hey!"

** and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"**

"Good riddance, kid." Ares mumbled.

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

"Of course it did." Zeus laughed.

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

"Oh, he's in for it now," Athena said, sitting up like there was a broom taped to her back, she made popcorn appear.

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

"Why did he choose that one?" the elder gods grimaced. The younger gods looked apologetic.

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"**

"GOD!" Zeus thundered.

"Dramatic," Poseidon and Hades mumbled.

"Father," Athena replied, "I'm sure Chiron will correct him."

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

"See?"

"No one disagreed with you." Poseidon muttered.

Athena narrowed her eyes.

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And...he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

"Try being the one barfed." Hera crossed her arms.

**"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"He just took the biggest war in history," Athena looked shell-shocked, "and put it in several simple sentences."

**Some snickers from the group.**

"Why?" Poseidon moaned, "He got the question, right."

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumble to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"I really hate that girl!" Artemis yelled.

Apollo looked shocked and bent towards Hermes and stage whispered, "Did she say what I think she said."  
"Yep," Hermes said, really slowly, "It wasn't just you."

"Good, I'm not insane, well, insaner."

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Mr. Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted." all of the gods said.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

Most of the gods were fine by this, except for a couple who were rolling on the floor in agony.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

"Serves her right." Artemis mumbled.

"She said that too, right?"

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"Or horse ears." Dionysus muttered, "Give or take."

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

"Shocker."

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"Happy note?"

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Boys are doofuses." Artemis muttered.

"She's back to her normal self," Apollo whispered.

"Good." Hermes said, "or not good, whichever."

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew it was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then, I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go-intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"Pretty much." Hades pondered.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

Athena face palm.

**"About real life. And how you studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

"Typical sea spawn answer." just guess who said that.

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshiped.**

"Even I can't do that!" Apollo whined, he got shot in the leg with an arrow.

**No, he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them ****correctly.**

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class had gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.**

Heads swung to Zeus.

** I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

Then to Poseidon. "What are you fighting about?" Hera sighed.

"Gimme a break, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT." Ares chanted again.

"Give me, give me!" Athena yelled, "Learn the bloody difference!"

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

_I need to tell her to stop picking favorites, oh well, maybe_ later. Hades thought.

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometime. I mean-I'm not a genius."**

"We've realized." Athena screamed. The entire Mediterranean fell on her.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

"Yes," Hephaestus said, sarcastically, "Deep and philosophical."

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

"Probably good that he did." Dionysus mumbled.

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so badly to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she's be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that said look she'd give me.**

"Wimp." Ares coughed. He got splashed.

"No, not a wimp," Hera scolded, "he's just acting like a proper son."

"Says the person who threw me off Olympus." guess who said that.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.**

Hephaestus looked deep in thought.

"Can we have one?" Hermes and Apollo whined.

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"Lovely mental image there." Aphrodite looked ready to barf.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper."**

All the gods were thinking, never works, all of the gods had been in that situation.

**But I was so mad my mind went bland. A wave roared in my ears.**

Poseidon smirked.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

"Something you'd like to tell me, Hades?" Poseidon said towering above him.

"No," Hades shuddered.

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**

**"-the water-"**

**"-like it grabbed her-"**

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.**

Poseidon glared at Hades.

**"Now, honey-"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks.**

"NO!" Hermes screamed, "That's rule number 6!"

"You've got rules?" Hera looked at him incredulously.

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"Of course it wasn't."

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her." **

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

_Yeah,_ Hades thought, _I bet she did...wait, I'm probably going to have to defend myself from an angry sea god. Snapple._

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But-"**

**"You-will-stay-here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"Probably not as good as mine." Ares boasted.

All of the other gods rolled their eyes.

Well, besides Apollo and Hermes, they were saying. "Not the regular I'll-kill-you-later stare, the deluxe!"

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on. **

**How'd she get there so fast?**

_She must've got excited,_ Hades thought.

Poseidon caught on and glared his worst glare at him.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring a the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"Not this time, son." Poseidon whispered.

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"Wasn't he supposed to be watching him!" Poseidon yelled.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds ahd disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

"Great..." everyone said sarcastically. Well, Apollo was wondering in what way that was great.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

"Probably did." Hades whispered.

"Something you'd like to add?" Poseidon said. Which caused Hades to flinch, Demeter and Zeus to smirk, and Hestia and Hera roll their eyes.

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

"A sea spawn did the safe thing?" Athena exclaimed, "Preposterous.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

The look in Poseidon's eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. Hades gulped.

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me. I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

Poseidon took time away from glaring to cough the word, "Dramatic."

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

"Uncle P," Apollo yelled, "Your kid is pure gold, like the sun!"

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

Athena gaped. She was going to make the boy read the book.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"YOU SENT A FURY AFTER MY SON?!" Poseidon lunged at Hades.

Hades traveled away, **(A.N. he looked like the Death Eaters in Harry Potter.)**

Poseidon soon followed him in a splash of water.

"Let's just see this until it ends." Zeus shrugged and pulled out popcorn. Ares did too. Demeter pulled out cereal.

*FIVE HOURS LATER*

The splash of water was faster, it slammed into Hades, which sent them both tumbling across the floor, Poseidon was on top of Hades in a threatening stance.

"When this book is over," Poseidon whispered in Hades's ear, "I will be keeping you in the ocean for some time." Poseidon returned to his seat, followed by Hades.

**Then things got even stranger.**

"I didn't realize that was possible." Hephaestus looked genuinely shocked.

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

"What ho?"

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"Yes!" Poseidon's voice rang throughout Olympus.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

Then he glared at Hades again.

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"Drop the 'honey' thing, would ya?!" Hermes questioned.

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hiss!**

"Yes!"

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

"Still letting the Mist affect him?" Zeus asked.

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms of something.**

Hermes and Apollo pointed puppy dog eyes at Demeter. "No!"

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

"No!" Athena yelled.

"Talking to the book." someone said.

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" Poseidon asked.

**I said, "Who?"**

"Like father, like son!" Hera said.

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. **

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Remind me to give him lying lessons." Hermes told Apollo. Artemis muttered, "Boys."

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

"Dra-ma-tic." Hades said, pronouncing each syllable.

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him****.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

Face palm.

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there had never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"Now Chiron can lie." Hermes said victoriously.

"Yeah, whatever," Apollo said, handing some drachmas.

"You bet on this?" Athena questioned, "You know, I'm not going to ask. **Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death."**

**A.N. There's chapter one! Please, Please review, I need stamina to keep writing**

**Haikus answer everthing,**

**Just like Apollo's oracle,**

**And I really need reviews.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians**

**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death **Athena read.

"Are all the chapters going to be like this?" Zeus pondered.

"Knowing that it's from a sea spawns perspective, probably." Athena answered.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, **

"Sea spawns are weird experiences," Athena began to say "but also crazy, insane, wild, daft, foolish, unwise, senseless, stupid-"

"Can you read instead of insulting my son and I?" Poseidon interrupted.

**but usually they were over quickly.**

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle.**

"Owie," Hermes said rubbing his head.

** For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman**

"Perky blond woman, my-" Ares was interrupted.

"Ares! I dare you to finish that sentence!" Hera yelled.

"Fine," Ares said, looking generally annoyed.

"Was it just me," Apollo whispered to Hermes, "Or did Ares almost whimper?"

"I don't think it was just you." Hermes replied.

** whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho. **

"From what I've read," Athena stated, "He already was psycho, but also, crazy, insane, wild, daft, foolish, unwise, senseless, stupid-"

"Shut up and read!" was what every god yelled.

"Fine, but this isn't over!"

**It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

"Good." Poseidon breathed.

"Probably Chiron's intention." Dionysus said.

"Are you paying attention?"

"Or course not!"

**Almost.**

"Bad." Poseidon breathed.

Athena's hand met her face.

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

"Satyrs can't lie, they couldn't even after a lesson from your cabin, Hermes." Dionysus snored.

"Is he, like, sleep talking." Aphrodite said, looking genuinely disgusted.

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

Hermes sighed.

**Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.**

"No dib, Sherlock!" Athena yelled.

"Your talking to the book, again." Ares, this time, replied smoothly.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

Poseidon glared hatefully at Hades, who couldn't help but accept the challenge and glare back.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. **

Zeus was forced into the glaring battle.

**A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy.**

Got glared at harder.

** One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

Poseidon found himself being glared at really hard.

Finally, it all ended when Hestia snapped her hand in front of their faces.

**I started to feel cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

Athena lunged to the back of her throne as if she was feeling pain.

"Your right, Poseidon, for once," Hades continued, "Being theatrical certainly does run in that family."

** I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

Ares grinned, evilly.

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked my for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot.**

"Oh, that's a good insult." Ares said, "Like Dionysus."

** I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good. **

"This book is killing me!" Hermes yelled as he rolled on the floor, clutching his stomach.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"Does wittle Percy want his mommy?" Ares taunted, at the book.

"You know," Apollo said, "I'm not going to, I wont, I won't, but, can't-resist. ARES YOU ARE TALKING TO THE BOOK!"

"Apollo, don't let his prestige get to you." Athena sighed.

"What does prestige mean?"

*sigh* "Prestige [pre-stezh'] noun, influence derived from past success or reputation."

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

Poseidon narrowed his eyes.

**And yet...there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover who'd been a good friend even if he was a little strange.**

"That's what most demigods say about their satyr." Dionysus sighed. "Little brats."

** I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

"Aw," was what all the females in the room said.

**I'd miss Latin class too,-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I started to believe him.**

"That's not good, why is Chiron doing that, he'll realize who he is faster." Poseidon said all in one breath.

**The evening before the final, I got so frustrated I threw the _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology_ across my dorm room. **

"What!" Athena yelled. All of the windows replaced from Aphrodite's screaming had all broken again.

**Words had started swimming off the page, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding on skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon** Hades looked slightly offended. **or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

Hermes' eyes gleamed.

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **

"More than a thousand years." Athena whispered.

**I will only accept the best from you, Percy Jackson.**

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

"Good," Athena said at normal speaking level, "I can speak again."

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before.  
**

"Probably is why he's failing." Athena mumbled.

Demeter looked thoughtful, "Cereal could fix him up."

"Athena!" Hades yelled, "Please!"

"And you say Zeus is dramatic." Poseidon whispered.

**Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

_Good,_ Athena thought, _at least he tried, I can save him from sea-spawnism._

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "...worried about Percy, sir."**

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper**

"I highly doubt that." Hephaestus said.

** but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"He's got a good point there." he answered himself.

**I inched closer.**

**"...alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

"By the time a sea spawn matures, he'll have grey hairs.

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline-"**

"What deadline?!" rang throughout the throne room.

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

**"Sir, he saw her..."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I...I can't fail in my duties again."**

Zeus glared nastily at Hades.

**Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"No!" Hermes flung himself on the floor, "Never give away your position!"

"DRAMATIC." no one knew who said that line, but there were two main suspects.

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

"Good, good," Hermes breathed, "Clean up all evidence."

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

"That centaur is risking way too much." Zeus muttered.

"The Mist." Hera answered.

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

"Good."

**A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.**

"And that, gods and goddesses, is why there are instructions."

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

"Sound like torture," Poseidon mumbled.

**"Don't remind me."**

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

"Ex-ag-ger-ration!" Athena sang.

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

"No-pe." Athena answered.

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just...tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression,**

"Then he would read you emotions." Dionysus said sleepily.

** and started getting ready for bed.**

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"Nice observation skills!" Athena said sarcastically.

She got splashed, to say the least.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three hour Latin exam,**

Hermes and Apollo looked horrified, clutching on there thrones.

** my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled,**

"Yeah, they are hard to spell, but cereal will fix that in a minute." Demeter said ever so cheerfully.

** Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

"The rules," Hermes presented, "Fool proof. That means Dionysus can't use it."

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's...it's for the best." His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

"I really hate that girl!" Artemis yelled.

"I really don't think she's feeling well," Apollo whispered.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

**My eyes stung.**

"Wimp."

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"Harsh." Athena said to Ares.

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say...you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-"**

"Bad word choice," everyone winced.

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

**"Percy-"**

**But I was already gone.**

"Your son is a wuss." Ares told Poseidon. He got splashed.

"Maybe you want to try an indirect approach." Hermes told him. He also got splashed.

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Carribean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"Well," Zeus started, "Poseidon's a nobody, I can't say the same for the rest of us."

They all laughed, Athena the loudest. Poseidon sat there pouting.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

"That's so sad," Hestia said from the hearth.

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

**The only person I dreaded saying goodbye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

"That's not suspicious at all." Athena replied rather sarcastically.

"A-ATHENA YOUR SPEAKING TO THE BOOK!" Hermes stuttered, but still came out strongly.

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

"Satyrs, I'll have to tell Dionysus that they need to act less conspicuous." Hephaestus took a mental note for him.

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased.**

**But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

"Your-your son just made a good point!" Athena shrieked.

**Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"Rude." Hera mumbled.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat.**

**"Wha-what do you mean?"**

"He means, when you were looking around the Greyhound, were you looking for Kindly Ones." Hermes said childishly.

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

"Never confess!"

It's amazing how fast tones in voices can change.

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"**

**"Oh...not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

"That's what we all want to know." Hades muttered.

**He winced. "Look, Percy...I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers..."**

**"Grover-"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

"Like Dionysus had said, all satyrs are." Hephaestus.

**His ears tuned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fish out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? IN case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes,**

"So someone finally found out why I make them like that." Dionysus rubbed his eyes.

All the other gods glared.

** but I finally made out something like:**

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800) 009-0009 **_

**"What's Half-"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um...summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that is family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

"Not by chance." was the common answer.

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

"Poseidon!" Hera screamed, "Someone need to correct your son!"

"Yaddy, yaddy, yaddy, yah." Hephaestus mumbled

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying **

"Aw..." all of the females said.

"That's so cute!" Aphrodite squealed.

**that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.**

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

Aphrodite then wrinkled her nose, then smoothed it out thinking,_ it will detract from my beauty._

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon hear, was an old-fashioned fruit-stand.**

"That sounds good right now," Demeter exclaimed.

_At least she's not talking about cereal,_ Hades thought.

"Hey, anyone want cereal?"

_Spoke too soon._

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen. **

"NO!" Poseidon yelled, "this can't be happening, they can't be the Fates, tell me they aren't the Fates."

"Okay." Hades replied.

"Well, what are they then," Poseidon still looked worried.

"You told me not to tell you."

"Oo, burn." Apollo sang, "Sorry Uncle P."

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

_Electric blue..._Athena thought.

**All three of these women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

"Don't be looking at him, don't be looking at him, don't-" Poseidon chanted.

"SHUT UP!"

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

"NO-"

"SHUT UP-" was said at the same time.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah, Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"He is such a sea spawn!" Zeus, Hades, and Athena all said.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

"Exactly!"

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

Face palms.

"He isn't loyal to his friend," Hera sniffed.

"Well, his friend didn't give an explanation." Hephaestus shot back.

"Touche."

**"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

"Idiot."

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic.**

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

"Males are such idiots." Artemis shrieked.

"Good, she must be feeling better." Apollo sighed in relief.

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

"Great timing." Hermes said, hoping to lighten the mood.

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

"NO!"

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like...Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"Nope, nothing like super creepy demon lady." Apollo got shot in the leg.

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw." **

**"The middle one took out her scissors and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something almost- older.**

"Very observant." Athena pondered. "But sadly, once a sea spawn, always a sea spawn."

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

"Better not." Poseidon glowered with Zeus at Hades.

"Okay, okay," Hades said, looking remorseful, "Guilty."

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

"Weirdo."

"Hermes." Hestia said.

"Yes."

"Shut your face hole." Everyone yelled.

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

**"Is this like superstition of something?" I asked.**

"No. You won't get the answer from me not ever." Hermes exclaimed.

**No answer.**

**"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

"Yes, yes it does." he said bluntly.

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.\**

"Maybe a lotus of a sea lily."

"Well then," Athena continued to read, **"Grover Accidently Loses His Pants."**

**A.N. Please look at my poll, it should be on my profile. But it is my first, so it might not be there.**

**Roses are Red**

**Violets are Blue**

**Reviews are lovely**

**And so are you!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A.N. You guys probably have noticed that I haven't been updating at my usual pace, I apologize. I have camp this week which leaves me with very little time to update. I won't give up on the fanfiction.**

**I won't give up this fanfic,**

**because I wouldn't want to leave you hanging,**

**I am fantastic.**

**(I took the last line from the Titan's Curse.)**

**Also, I know you're getting bored of reading this, I plan to go through the HoO series. I just don't know how to get the book. My older sister has not let me barrow them. Oh, well, but please update a way to get it.**

**And is there a faster way to do chapters. Like, I'm pretty much copying the chapters from the book, there has to be a faster way to do it.**

**QueenoftheBlackOrder, over and out.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A.N. I put up a poll mentioned several chapters ago, but I've only got four voters! Please go to my profile and look at it!**

**And I was fangirling over Doctor Who early so I thought, why not? So I'm planning on adding some quotes in.  
**

**The quotes will be vague, some sad some humorous. So if you haven't watched Doctor Who you'll understand it perfectly well. I'm planning on Hades saying most of the quotes because the Doctor and Hades of both the Lonely God.  
**

**Oh, and another thing, their is controversy over the age order of the gods, so I picked this one. (Dependent on after regurgitation, because that was like a second birth.)  
**

**So in my mind it is technically: **

**Zeus**

**Hestia**

**Demeter**

**Hera**

**Poseidon**

**Hades**

**It's mentioned in the chapter so your ready.**

**Disclaimer: No matter at how many failed dreams, I'm not Rick Riordan, and I don't own PJO. Or a Doctor Who quote I used, try to find it!**

**"Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants," **Athena read.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Your son is an idiot." Athena interrupted herself in a I-can't-believe-this tone, "My best friend, my only friend, seems worried about something and asked me to wait for him, but I don't care."

"Shut up, Bird Brain." Poseidon countered. Athena and Poseidon now stood up and was yelling in each others faces.

"Make me!"

"Gladly."

"Stop fighting!" Hestia put her hands by both of their faces, making them lean back, like they were doing the limbo.

"Aw," Aphrodite whined, "I was hoping for a kiss."

She got attacked by water and owls.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**

"Well, that's a good point." Athena contemplated.

"Well, it sounds like a coincidence, but oh well." Zeus sighed, thinking of Thalia.

"Never ignore a coincidence," Hades said, everyone looked at him, gaping, **(A.N. I want to make Hades a little shy, he's in darkness all day, probably writing poems, its my logic. Also very sarcastic.)**

Poseidon sighed, he knew what was coming, a sarcastic statement.

"Unless your busy," Hades continued, "then always ignore a coincidence."

Athena sighed, she thought he would say something logical.

Poseidon, Zeus, and Demeter gaped, they didn't know he had it in him. Hestia and Hera knew that this was his normal antics.

Hermes and Apollo were laughing on the floor.

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

"AHAHAHAHAH!" Hermes and Apollo roared.

"Zzzzz." the mighty Dionysus snored. **(Hehe, that rhymed, roared, snored, moving on.)**

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

"Hermes, you are not pranking, my sons house." Poseidon said.

"Oh," Apollo laughed, "you got told."

"Did you just giggle dude?" Hermes questioned.

"...No..."

"You hesitated." Hephaestus pointed out.

**A word about my mother, before you meet her. Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, **

"Yes, she is." Poseidon said dreamily.

"Oh," Aphrodite got _low-carb_ popcorn, "you still like her, Poseidon."

**which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

This got many frowns.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five,**

"ZEUS." Poseidon and Hera yelled.

"I was upset!" he made up an excuse.

"That doesn't matter!" Hera shrieked.

The Red Sea fell on him.

** and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program.**

"You chose a smart woman...the world is ending!" Athena yelled in terror.

**Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. **

Athena stopped her end-of-the-world rant, to look sad, with the rest of the gods.

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad. I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about it cause it makes her sad.**

"She sounds like she likes you still," Aphrodite brought of casually. Lets just say a lot of water caused her mascara to run.

**She has no pictures.**

"Aww" Aphrodite and Hera said, sad.

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set said across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at see.**

"That's a lie, but not a lie, Poseidon..." Hermes began.

"The angel is mine, Hermes," Poseidon interrupted.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. **

_The woman has a dedication for family and education,_ Athena thought, _I shall bless her._

**She never complained or got mad. Not even once.**

"Lucky..." Hermes and Apollo whined.

** But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano,**

Poseidon frowned.

** who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

His frown deepened.

** then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

"Eww!" Aphrodite squealed.

The rest of the females were fanning themselves, and the boys looked a little green.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along...well, when I came home is a good example.**

Poseidon got out a notepad to take, well, notes. He was going to write down everything Gabe did wrong. Then demand Hades to send him to the Fields of Punishment, or maybe Tartarus.

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

"Ewww."

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

Poseidon was scribbling on his paper intently.

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

Everyone had a disgusted look on their face.

"News flash," Hera yelled, "Pay for yourself!"

**That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**

"I wonder," Apollo pondered, "what Percy would've done if Gabe had said that?"

"You-you just said something somewhat logical." Artemis stuttered.

"Hey! I have my moments." Apollo puffed out his chest with dignity.

"Yeah," Artemis said, "Rarely."

"Yeah..." Apollo returned.

The gods were counting down in their heads. _Five, four, three, two, one!_

"HEY!"

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes.**

"That's an insult to walruses." Poseidon said looking up from his notepad.

**He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

"I don't think even I could make him handsome!" Aphrodite yelped.

Let just say, she got ignored.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting pay-checks, spending money on cigars that made me nauseous,**

Poseidon scowled and pressed his pencil down harder.

** and on beer, of course. Always beer. **

Harder.

**Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

*SNAP* Poseidon's pencil broke in half. "HE DID WHAT, NOW!"

"Well..." Hermes started.

"I HEARD, HERMES!

"Sheesh, don't ask then."

Poseidon was about to flash out, but was stopped by all the gods before he did something he'd regret. For example: Scaring Sally and Percy.

The gods were not thinking about what he'd do to you-know-who, Gabe.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

Aphrodite needed a barf bag, the other gods and goddesses looked on the verge of needing one, too.

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Athena and Hera were thinking _Wow, what a smart woman. _and _She made such a sacrifice for her family._

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight."**

"Someone else might have problems carrying his weight." Aphrodite said, figuratively and literally.

All the gods bust out laughing.

**"Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"There's someone semi-decent!" Artemis yelled.

Apollo got out First Aid just in case.

**"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. "Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

"That could be arranged." Hermes began to laugh maniacally.

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

"I'm sure this sea spawn is many things," Athena began, "but Brain Boy probably isn't one of them."

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During the school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

Hades handed his older brother a pencil.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

"Sarcasm, sweet, sarcasm." Hermes and Apollo chorused.

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

Icy glares were fixated on Hades.

** or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him.**

"Okay, Athena, you win!" Poseidon gave in.

Everyone was gaping, Hermes gave Apollo ten drachmas.

**A sudden chill went through me. I felt like someone-something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

**Then, I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

"Did he just think his mom was a fury?" Demeter questioned, "Cereal is in need!"

Hermes hummed the Superman theme song.

"Read Athena!"

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

_That's how a family should be._ Hera thought, _I will try to make that happen._

Somewhere else, the Fates all smiled at each other, the bonds were strengthening in the gods. Now if only Poseidon calmed down when Hades did something. Or he's going to be breathing so hard, both of them mind you, that they're going get an asthma attack.

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking I the room.**

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile was as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

"That woman is a miracle, Uncle, please?" Hermes begged.

"NO."

**"Oh, Percy." she hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

"Mama's boy." Ares coughed.

Hera and Aphrodite smacked him over the head.

"Do you have something caught in you throat, Ares?" Hephaestus questioned.

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, liquorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central.**

Hermes's mouth began to water.

Artemis rolled her eyes, _Boys._

_Thank goodness Arty's feeling okay,_ Apollo thought.

** She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Is the free samples in quotation marks?" Hermes wondered.

"Yes, yes they are." Athena frowned.

"H-A-W" Hermes made a random noise in his throat.

**We at together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, **

_Boys._

**she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

Hera glared intensively at Ares, daring him to say something, he didn't.

"Coward." Apollo whispered.

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

"Boys." Artemis told everyone, even the men.

"For once," Hera scowled, "I have to agree with you."

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally, how about some bean dip, huh?"**

Everyone gritted their teeth. Poseidon broke another pencil.

**I gritted my teeth.**

"Like father, like son." Zeus said.

"You were doing it too." Hestia told him from the hearth.

"YOU GOT TOLD!" Hermes screamed.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"How about a god?" echoed throughout the room.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time.**

"Key word:" Athena continued, "almost, he still got expelled."

She got a shock wave of water.

** I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

Hermes was counting all the times he or his kids has had to do that.

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

"What happened, why!" Apollo was kneeling on the ground, shaking his hands at the sky.

"Dramat-" Hades and Poseidon began to say.

"WE GOT IT!" everyone roared.

"Kay, jeez." Poseidon whispered.

**Until that trip to the museum...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

"Don't lie to your mother!" Hera shrieked.

"You're talking to the book." Hephaestus pointed out.

"I DON'T CARE!"

"Sounds like you do."

**"No, mom."**

**I felt bad lying.**

"Good." Hera sat back down.

**I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"No, she's clear-sighted." Poseidon told everyone.

"Wow, you got s-o lucky with that woman." Hermes mumbled.

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

Poseidon smiled.

**"Three nights-same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

"Yeah, I wonder why." Athena said sarcastically.

"Why?" Hermes and Apollo asked in perfect unison.

Athena gritted her teeth. "Never mind."

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you here me?"**

Poseidon stopped writing and just snapped the new pencil anyway. Then he did it again, and again, and again...

"The world's going to run out of pencils, Barnacle Beard." Athena sighed.

**I wanted to punch him,**

"DO IT, DO IT, DO IT..." Ares chanted.

No one wanted to admit it but they were saying that in their heads.

** but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

"He better." all the gods yelled.

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Oh, sweet, sweet bribery." Hermes's mouth watered.

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip...it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"WHAT!" Aphrodite yelled, "You can't put a budget on clothes, I want to knock his lights out!"

"I will join you." Poseidon stood up.

"Hey," Zeus interrupted, "After the book, kay, good."

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

Insert the sound of gritting teeth.

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip...and maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

"WHAT!" Athena yelled, "He sponsored it, gave him the money, and he's asking _him _to apologize. I will join you in going to Gabe's venomous smell."

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"DO IT, DO IT, DO IT..."

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

"NO!"

"Ares, will you join Feather Face, Aphrodite and I?" Poseidon questioned. Ares nodded vigorously, and Athena scowled.

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

"It's to protect him." Hera whispered. Everyone but Athena sent her questioning looks.

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

"Gotta love sarcasm." Apollo drooled.

"Get the grammar right!"

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"What brain?" Athena asked, looking innocent with her owlly- eye face. **(A.N. You know like puppy dog look, I'll shut up now.)**

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about...whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

"Oh," Apollo said in the tattle tale voice, "She knows!"

"No duh, Sherlock!" everyone yelled.

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken.**

"Boys, so oblivious." Artemis muttered hatefully, "I shall join in the beating of the vermin."

** She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

Grit teeth here.

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his '78 Camaro- for the whole weekend.**

"What a pill!" Hera screeched.

"Hey," Apollo looked offended, "Don't insult the medicine."

"Oops, sorry." Hera did not use any sarcasm in that statement.

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

"Like he'd be the one driving, he's twelve." Athena said, then paled as she read the next line.

**Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. **

Everyone minus Hades roared in laughter.

"Why aren't you laughing, lil brother," Poseidon breathed, "it's hilarious."

"First of all," Hades hissed, which sent chills down everyones' spines, "don't call me little brother, and secondly," he spoke in a normal voice, "what was so funny?"

"Your so thick." Athena shook her head.

"I know what could fix that, CEREAL!" Demeter ranted.

**But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on this paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

"Jerk," everyone whispered.

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain.**

"This'll be good." Hermes and Apollo leaned forward.

"GRAMMAR!"

**As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.**

"Wow," everybody was in shock, "that's powerful."

_Maybe too powerful,_ Zeus hissed in his mind.

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

"You think he'd start to get it." Athena started.

**I got in in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

"My favorite was to drive, stepping on it." Ares mumbled.

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Athena shivered.

** and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. I loved the place.**

"Naturally." someone said.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she met my dad.**

"Aw," Aphrodite got googly eyes.

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappeared from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

Poseidon sighed thinking of her eyes, those glorious, magnificent, majestic, beautiful, pretty, gorgeous eyes.

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine.**

**We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work. **

"Whats with the blue." Zeus said out of the blue. **(A.N. Sorry, couldn't resist, it's punny.)**

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

"That'll be nice, thank you." he told the book sarcastically.

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of the way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"I think its a little bigger of a streak if he's a sea spawn," Athena told everyone, "More like a streak of obedience."

"Oh, burn!" guess which two said that.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before parents died in the plane crash.**

Zeus found himself receiving many, many glares.

**She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

"I still can't believe Fish Face found someone who's decent, and not someone dumb, I need an Advil." Athena told them all.

Poseidon face-palmed.

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we come to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty.**

"Don't make her cry!" no one knew who said that.

** I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes.**

"And thus, his ego grows." Athena said in a calm voice.

Everyone snickered, except for Poseidon.

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

"But I'm proud anyway!"

"Um, Uncle P, your talking to the book." Apollo replied to him.

"Alright...your point?"

"B-U-R-N." Hermes pronounced each syllable.

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean...when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But...he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

"BECAUSE SOMEBODY HAD TO MAKE A STUPID LAW!" Poseidon bellowed.

"Well," Zeus began, "Hades was spending to much time with Maria and Marie, **(HoO incase you didn't know) **so I had to."

Demeter was glaring hatefully at Hades, "I'm still upset about Maria, but now WHO'S MARIE?!"

Hades looked really sad and guilty. Which told Demeter not to push anymore of his buttons.

The Fates smiled still, the gods were starting, very slowly, mind you, to come together.

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember...something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"I did visit him and you can't take that away!"

"You broke the law!" Zeus seemed upset.

"You broke the oath!" Poseidon replied.

"So did you!"

"Burn."

"You did it first!"

*THREE HOURS LATER*

"Mother Rhea always liked you best!"

"Not now!" Hades yelled.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry with my father.**

Poseidon hung his head.

**Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

"Mmmm, s-mores." Apollo mumbled.

**"I don't know, honey." her voice was heavy. "I think...I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"Good," Hera had bug eyes, "at least he regretted it."

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezing it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away." **

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said-that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

"They should." Athena muttered.

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

"You know monsters." Hermes said as if he was asking if anyone wanted tea.

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

"Cyclops, that's under your control Poseidon." Athena pointed out.

"Well, not all of them." Poseidon was trying to breathe properly.

**Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidently put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope that I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my toddler hands.**

"Just like Heracles." no one knew who said this.

Artemis and Hera scowled.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

_Like any other half-blood, gods, he's thick._ Athena told herself, _but he seems to have a kind spirit._

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher to dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

"Yeah, put your life in danger to stay where your mommy met your daddy." Athena said sarcastically, for some reason regretting the words once they were out.

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just...I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

"Oh, great. Another brat." guess who said that.

Dionysus got dumped in the ocean then sent back.

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born-talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

"It should if he wants to be safe." everyone mumbled.

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked any more questions she would start to cry.**

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"Oh, great, demigod dream."

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, **

"What're you two fighting about?" Hestia asked.

"Maybe it's because the book's titled_ THE LIGHTNING THIEF!" _Zeus yelled.

**were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. **

"Ha!"

**The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings.**

"Ha!"

** As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

Heads swung towards Hades.

"Why do you always think it's me?" he questioned.

No one had an answer.

**I ran towards them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, NO!**

"YES!"

Poseidon stuck out his tongue.

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.**

"Yeah, Uncle P, have you forgotten?"

** Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end. **

Poseidon paled.

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't...he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"What does he mean, what is Grover then?" Hermes pondered.

Athena face-palmed.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

**My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!"**

"Don't curse!"

** he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her!" **

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on- and where his legs should be...where his legs should be...**

"What's with his legs?"

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell my now!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"**

**Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"Oh, I get it now!"

"Idiot." Artemis told him.

"Next chapter," Athena read, "**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting."**

**A.N. I have some quotes from Doctor Who I would like someone, probably Hades to say, warning, he probably, most likely, will get out of character, but as a said shy, but coming out of his shell, and very sarcastic is what I wanted him to be.**

**My favorite Doctor Who quotes are these:**

Hermits United. We meet up every ten years, swap stories about caves. It's good fun, for a hermit.

Do not attempt to escape or you will be obliterated. (Maybe Ares.)

(A sadder one) Good men don't need rules, today is not the day to find out why I have so many.

Of course I'm okay, I'm always okay, I'm the king of okay. Oh that's a rubbish title, forget that title.

(Sad) Because what's the point in them being happy now if they'll be sad later, of course, the answer is, because they'll be sad later.

There's no point in being grown up if you can't be a little childish sometimes.

(Sad) And you know what? I'd love to forget it all. Every last bit of it. But I don't. Not EVER.

Maybe someones cell phone will go off, but know one was calling, someone was calling, The Silence, kills you with a shock, and you can't remember them once you look away. (Tell me if it's too much to remember)

Ponchos. Because if we're going to die, lets die looking like a Peruvian folk band.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the Doctor Who quotes.**

Just then, a flash of light left 9 teenagers in its wake.

"WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT OUR COUNCIL MEETING." Zeus thundered.

"Dad?" a girl with black hair and electric blue eyes asked, "Don't you recognize us?"

"Thalia?" and "Weren't you a tree, I hate it when girls are turned into trees." echoed through the room.

"You broke the oath." Poseidon said in a sing-song childish voice.

"You did to."

...  
"Touche."

"What year is it?" a blonde girl with striking grey eyes asked.

"2002." Athena replied.

"Oh, we've traveled back in time!"

"Well, full names and introductions."

The blonde girl told them, "I'm Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, architect and hero of Olympus."

"Why do we need an architect?" Apollo questioned, "Does Olympus get trashed?"

"You-you asked a somewhat smart question, again!"

"I'm not going to reply to that, lil sis."

"I'm not your little sis!"

The girl with black hair spoke up again, "Wow, it's just like the fight I listened to yesterday, I'm Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus, Lieutenant of Artemis."

An elvish looking boy, with curly hair walked up, "My name's Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus, Counselor of Cabin Nine, and fire user." he lit his hand to prove his point which freaked out a lot of people. Hephaestus smiled.

"Stupid." a girl with choppy hair walked up, "My name's Piper Mclean, Counselor of Cabin Ten, and charm speaker, and I don't need to prove it." she said pointedly at Leo. The beauty goddess beamed with pride.

"I'm Jason Grace," said a boy with blond hair, "son of Jupiter, Champion of Juno, and Hero of Olympus."

"What's a roman doing with them?" Hermes asked.

"Future's pretty messed up."

"YOU HAD ANOTHER ONE, WITH THE SAME WOMAN!" Hera yelled at her husband.

"Please before a war breaks out," Frank said, "my name's Frank Zhang, son of Mars, Legacy of Poseidon." **(A.N. before the House of Hades, so no praetorship.)**

"You kidding me," Ares whined.

A girl with curly hair walked up, "Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto, hero of Olympus."

"You had another one!" Demeter was yelling at Hades's face about not being worthy of her daughter, but Hades was just staring at Hazel.

"Ha-Hazel." Hades stuttered, he got questioning looks, "your dead."

"I know," Hazel answered in the 'duh' tone, "I was there."

"Oh, burn." Hermes told him.

Hazel walked back, Hermes noticed that she was putting a ruby in her pocket.

A sickly pale boy walked up, leaning on an iron sword, "Names Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades, Ambassador of Pluto, and Ghost King."

Demeter looked very annoyed at Hades, but looked at the pale boy and said, "Cereal could fix him up."

"No, I'm fine."

"Just one bowl."

"I'm fine."

"Hades, your son just refused cereal!"

"I know, I'm sitting right here."

"You broke the oath." Poseidon and Zeus sang childishly.

Hades ignored them, "Nico, where's Bianca?"

The question was innocent enough but it seemed to hurt Nico the most, "I'm not sure at this moment."

Finally, a boy with black hair and sea green eyes walked up, "Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, Savior and Hero of Olympus."

"Why does Olympus need saving-" Athena got cut off.

"Who cares, did we win?" Ares interrupted.

"Yes." Leo replied.

"YES!"

"Dude, no need to repeat me."

Before the son of Hephaestus could die, Poseidon got really impatient, "Can we got to the human vermin now, I'm already shaking with impatientness."

"Not a real word." Athena coughed.

"Fine." Zeus sighed and the all flashed away.

They arrived in front of the house, Percy looked really, really confused. "Wasn't this renovated when we moved out?"

"We traveled in time, Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth answered.

They knocked.

The odor hit them first. The walrus himself answered the door. "Who are you people?"

"Where hermits." Hades spoke up. The gods looked like they weren't going to save him from this hole he dug for himself, and the demigods looked at him really weirdly.

"Hermit. With friends." Gabe seemed questionable.

"Hermits united. We are every ten years, swap stories about caves. It's good fun, for a hermit."

"Okay, creepy."

The demigods looked awed at the fast excuse for excuse. Especially Leo.

Poseidon punched him in the face, then the crotch, then slammed the door while his head was forward. "Done."

With a grin, Poseidon flashed them to the throne room.

**A.N. Just something I made to make up for that week of camp. I still have a poll up, so please check it out on my profile.**

**If anyone has any one-liners that could somehow fit into this story tell me!, but also sight them, incase I don't know where it's from in a review.**

**This bit is for all the fans of Doctor Who, I would like to make a fanfiction about Hades being the Doctor, since they're the Lonely God. I had a dream about this and Rose was Aphrodite, Captain Jack was Poseidon, Martha was Hestia, Donna was Demeter, Amy was Hera, Rory was Zeus, River Song was Persephone, and Clara was Athena. Review me what you think and I'll try to write a fanfiction about it.**

**Adios amigos!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or any Doctor Who quotes.**

**"My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting."** Athena read.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"That's my favorite way to drive." Ares exclaimed.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen," Apollo started, "is why he always ends up in the hospital."

"Dad!-ish," Frank complained, but wasn't sure of what to call him in his Greek form.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

**"**Now that I think about it," Percy asked, "has anyone ever, ever seen shag-carpet pants."

"No!" Aphrodite shrieked, "Then they'll have had a bad pants day!"

"Never mind."

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

"Seaweed Brain," Annabeth chastised, "Don't let the satyrs hear that."

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

"That makes him sound all weird and stalkerish," Nico said with intense pointing.

Jason, Piper, Leo, Frank, and Hazel all looked at him like he grew a second head.

"What?" Nico asked.

"Nothing," they all answered.

"Stalkerish is not an actual word!" Athena and Annabeth exclaimed.

"Well," Nico and Leo began, "Annabeth isn't a proper word either."

"It's a name!"

**Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

**"Watching me?"**

"Stalker." Hermes coughed.

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I ****_am _****your friend."**

**"Urn ... what ****_are _****you, exactly?"**

"Just your best friend plus goat legs, what could go wrong!" Leo pretended a business sales man voice.

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

"That'll get him going." Thalia and Nico leaned forward.

"Thanks guys." Percy answered.

"No problem," they returned nonchalantly, "Satyrs will just trample you, adding on to the long list of why you could die!"

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty ****_"Blaa-ha-ha!"_**

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

"No, it's a nervous laugh," Piper exclaimed.

"Really, it said it was a bleat..."

"Sarcasm, Repair Boy, sarcasm."

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

"He said goat, sea spawn!" Athena yelled.

"I've realized."

The Romans were shocked that someone would speak to their gods in that fashion.

**"I'm a ****_goat _****from the waist down."**

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

"The brat got him their." Dionysus said lazily.

"Are you paying attention?" Hazel asked.

"Of course not, Haley."

**_"Blaa-ha-ha!_** **There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

"No kidding." Thalia replied.

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a ****_myth, _****Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you ****_admit _****there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

"Not the right place." Athena exclaimed, "My mom and friend are worried about something and I'll bring back something from a long time ago!"

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

"Stubborn." Hephaestus coughed. Leo smiled at his dad.

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"DAD!" Nico and Hazel exclaimed.

Meanwhile, Poseidon and Hades were having an intense glaring fight. Hestia snapped her fingers in front of their faces.

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

"Rude," Hera said, rather miffed.

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"CAMP HALF BLOOD!" the Greeks exclaimed.

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

**"The summer camp I told you about." **

"CAMP HALF BLOOD!" the Greeks exclaimed, again.

**My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

"You make it sound stupid and not a big deal," the gods yelled at Percy.

"Okay, okay, lesson learned, now on with the book."

"Sea spawn." Athena whispered.

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

"Great," Athena sighed, exasperated, "He's going to confuse, the one already confused."

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in ****_me._****"**

**"I meant ****_you, _****like 'someone.' Not you, ****_you._****"**

"What?" was the general response.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

"Thank you!" Artemis yelled.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

"Just your friendly neighborhood monster." Nico told him, cheekily.

Frank couldn't help but think, _Why didn't he act like that with the Romans._

**"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

**I didn't know where ****_there _****was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

"The camp does have that effect on people." Annabeth said deep in thought.

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really ****_hadn't _****been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"No," Thalia yelled, "She wanted to offer you a Cheese N' Wiener."

"Actually one did."

"That's creepy," Nico finished for her.

**"Were almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

_I wish she was a hunter, but at least I've got Thalia. _Artemis thought.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling ****_boom!, _****and our car exploded.**

"WHAT!" Poseidon yelled.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

"Yeah," Percy replied, "I feel sorry for microwavable things."

"Seaweed Brain."

"Wise Girl.

"Get a room." Thalia and Nico said in the same tone.

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

"Talk about a headache." Apollo and Hermes mumbled.

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

"Yeah, I just took my head from the seat, I'm fine, cereal less, but fine!" Demeter yelled.

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

"Beautiful description their." Hermes brought up..

**Lightning. **

"ZEUS!" Poseidon yelled.

"Dad! I'm right here!" Percy yelled, back.

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

"So caring." Hera mumbled.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

"What is it?" Leo got really into books.

"Talking to the book." Jason coughed.

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"I don't think those are his hands." Athena said matter-of-factly.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

"Wouldn't of bother us!" Zeus and Thalia both said.

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"Are you calling me fat?!" Thalia questioned.

**_"What?"_**

"Me, the tree."

"Wait," Leo, Piper, Jason, Frank, and Hazel stopped, "You were a tree?"

"Spoilers."

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

"I'm not huge."

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

"She can't," Athena muttered.

"Hades," Poseidon threatened, "If you hurt one hair on their head..."

"Yeah, yeah, got it."

_Sorry, Uncle, you've got it coming._ Percy and Annabeth thought.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

"But we've met Mrs. Jackson before," Thalia and Nico exclaimed, "she can't go now!"

"What?" Poseidon asked.

"Spoilers."

**"No!" I shouted. "You ****_are _****coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

_That could be his fatal flaw._ Athena thought.

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he ****_couldn't _****be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

"Hades," Poseidon stood up, "did you send the minotaur after them."

"What if I did?" Hades also stood up.

Hestia pushed them back in the chairs. Man, that woman had some muscle.

**"He doesn't want ****_us_****," my mother told me. "He wants ****_you. _****Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,** **at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

"Maybe," Hazel started, "because it's a goat and your eyes are deceiving you."

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

"Yeah, Grover might want to try some diet cans." Thalia shook her head.

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"Someone really should cut that." Demeter yelled at Dionysus, who was sleeping, "Well, I tried."

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of ****_Muscle Man _****magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear—**

"What!" Apollo asked between laughs.

"Apollo," Hermes fake-sighed, "it means he was naked except for underwear."

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—**

"Not only underwear," Apollo corrected, "Fruit of the Looms."

Finally, the Greeks and some of the gods and Romans couldn't hold it, they burst out laughing.

**which would've looked funny, **

"How could that not look funny?" Leo questioned.

**except that the top half of his body was so scary.**

"Oh,"

"I thought that was Percy's answer." Nico said, really confused.

"Yeah, so did I." Thalia continued.

"I hate you two." Percy glared.

They started to back down, but that didn't last, "Love you too, cuz!"

** Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"So sharp then," Hephaestus sighed, "Why didn't you just say that?"

"Umm," Percy looked deep in thought, "Comic relief?"

"That's not an answer Seaweed Brain," Annabeth smiled.

"Wise girl."

"What have we told you," Thalia said.

"Get a room," Nico continued, both using the same tone of Percy and Annabeth.

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"I hate to break it to you," Hermes said, "but they are."

Apollo gasped, "I had no idea."

Aphrodite sighed, "Did you know that you look like your flirting, gross."

The shut up immediately.

"For once, just once, I thank you Aphrodite." Artemis was rubbing her head.

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

"I still don't understand how you got such a smart woman, I mean, it's near impossible!" Athena was getting a headache.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

Athena fainted.

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

Athena had woken up during the laughing, and sat gaping.

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

"Poor Camaro." nobody know who said this.

**_Not a scratch, _****I remembered Gabe saying.**

"Oops." Nico grinned.

Athena smirked as she read the next line.

**Oops.**

"NO! Death Breath, you've got Percyitis!" Thalia fake wept.

"What should I do?" Nico gasped.

"Smack Percy!"

"Okay."

"Wait, I didn't agree to any of this!" Percy exclaimed.

"It's part of having such amazing cousins." Nico and Thalia said in unison.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

**"How do you know all this?"**

"That's what I've been wondering." Athena said.

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"A mother like that could never be selfish." Hera sighed.

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.** **The bull-man closed in. **

"Bull-man, punk?" Ares questioned.

**Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

"They better not get hurt, Hades." Poseidon threatened.

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

"Loyal mother." Hera whispered.

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

"Perfect description of an everyday monster there." Zeus exclaimed.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, **

"Don't do that, idiot sea spawn." Athena told him.

"Yeah, I'm sure the book added it in there to tell you how bad the fear was." Percy shot back.

"Oh, burn." Hermes added.

"Shut up."

**but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

"Shut up." Athena said, seeing the looks on Apollo and Hermes' faces.

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

"NO!" Poseidon yelled, then settled down glaring at Hades.

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

"That pessimism must come from Poseidon," Zeus pondered.

"I prefer to be called a pessimistic optimist." Percy told him.

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

_She would've made a great hunter._ Artemis thought.

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. **

**She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. **

**His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

"NO!" Poseidon glared his scariest glare at Hades, who shriveled away in fear.

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

"HADES!" Poseidon got up and just calmly walked over to him, then with him thinking he was going to whisper, yelled in his ear, "WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING, SENDING THE MINOTAUR AFTER AN INNOCENT BOY AND HIS MOTHER!"

"Thanks for making me go deaf there." Hades said in a slightly, more than slightly, loud tone.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

"ADHD." Annabeth replied, seeing the confused look on Leo's face. Seriously, he was terrifyingly clueless.

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

"Was it a coincidence that it was red?" Hermes wondered.

"Never ignore a coincidence, unless your busy, then always ignore a coincidence." Apollo said cheekily, quoting Hades. **(A.N. From an earlier chapter.)**

"Shut up." Hades whined, slightly red.

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"You really need to work on your insults, punk." Ares sharpened his sword.

"Dad!"

"What?"

"Nothing." Frank added quickly.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea**

"Oh no!" Nico yelled, Hazel couldn't help it, she swatted his head. "What was that for?"

"Nothing." she said, but looked miffed.

**—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.**

"Oh, good plan." Thalia finished.

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

Athena hunched over, muttering something that sounded like "Oblivious."

**But it didn't happen like that.**

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

Poseidon paled.

**Time slowed down.**

The rest of the gods paled.

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"How did you do that?" Thalia asked.

**How did I do that?**

"No! Thalia, it must be contagious!" Nico whined. Thalia dragged him to the other side of the room.

"For your safety," she said.

Everyone stifled a laugh.

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

"That hurt!" Thalia whined.

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

"And how do you know what that smells like?" Hermes questioned.

"Um, my cooking?" Percy answered sheepishly.

"Oh, we know." Hazel told him.

"BURN." Apollo rubbed in.

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

The song 'Hallelujah' from Handel started playing, no one knew why until, they saw Athena pressing her iPod.

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light,** **and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. **

"Good luck with that, punk." Ares grumbled.

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—****_snap!_**

Ares gaped.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock.**

"Did you get a concussion?" Poseidon paled.

"I don't know." Percy answered.

"Most likely, Seaweed Brain." Annabeth said.

"Oh."

** When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

The room was filled with clapping. Except for Hades who was grumbling/cheering. But he would never let them know.

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

"No dib, Sherlock." Zeus said.

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother,**

Hera was crying.

** but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

"Must be one of my daughters." Aphrodite squealed.

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"Really Annabeth," Athena sighed, from the way they acted she expected it.

"I'm tired," Thalia whined, "I'm sure little Nico is to."

"I'm older than you!"

"What?" Zeus and Poseidon asked.

"Um, no-nothing." Nico stuttered.

**A.N. Cliffy! What is Zeus and Poseidon going to do? Let it go, thinking that it is in the book. Or take their wrath out an Hades. (I'm starting to feel sorry for Hades.)**

**I still have a poll on my profile so please check it out. It's which is your favorite god or goddess.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A.N. Hello my readers!**

**I've got to say I'm sometimes upset when I read my reviews, I have been reported a couple times. I went back to the rules and I will not write in all caps if that was it.**

**Also, one of them said that I was breaking the copyright rule. I have changed my way of doing it. If you look on the reviews I'm currently doing it the way Gage Shadow is doing it.**

**If you do report me. Can you please tell me what I'm doing wrong? I'm never going to get better if you don't.**

**Also, KitkatMoon gave me some support so I thank that author and all of my other reviewers!**

**Thank you Gage Shadow and KitkatMoon! This chapter is for you two!**

"We'll figure that out later, "Zeus vanished with a clap of thunder. **(A.N. Nico's age.)**

"Drama Queen." every god vanished except for Hestia.

"Okay then, here's a list of the room arrangements." then she too vanished.

The list read:

_Piper, Annabeth- Room 1_

_Thalia, Hazel- Room 2_

_Nico, Percy, Frank- Room 3_

_Jason, Leo- Room 4_

Room 1

In the room, there was one bunk bed, practically a library, a bathroom, a desk, etc.

"I call top bunk," Piper flung her bag up there. The bags were given from the gods with any personal belongings that might be needed.

"I call the library!" Annabeth ran over to the shelves.

"Um, Annabeth, bed first."

"Oh, yeah," she looked sheepish.

Room 2

In their room, there was a bunk bed, a bathroom, a basket incase of jewel emergencies, a bear skin rug, etc.

"I wonder how bad our demigod stink is?" Thalia asked.

"Um, I would guess pretty bad."

"Are you ready?" Thalia said challenging.

"I'm ready," Hazel looked like she was about to jump off a cliff, Thalia didn't look much better.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Room 3

In their room, their was a bunk bed and a couch, a bathroom, etc.

"I call top bunk!" Percy hollered.

"I'm getting bottom bunk, Nico you get the couch," Frank sighed, "Nico you act so different when you're with the Romans, why?"

"I'll tell you why," Percy said from above, "because he used to be a hyperactive ten-year-old."

"Was not!" Nico challenged.

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Chill, dudes," Frank was rubbing his head, "oi vey."

Room 4

In room four, their was a bunk bed, a bathroom, a small forge, skylight, etc.

"I get top bunk," Leo yelled.

"Oh, come on!" Jason pouted.

"Did the mighty Jason, son of Jupiter, Champion of Juno, just pout?" Leo teased.

"Nope."

"You sure?"

"Positively, gravity just took hold of my lip."

"Whatever."


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO, HoO, or any Doctor Who quotes.**

"So, Nico, how can you be older." Zeus questioned the next day. Poseidon gave up, he didn't want to have his nephew think he'd hurt him.

"Um..." Nico stuttered.

"Well, no offence at all," Percy started.

"but," Annabeth continued.

"it," Hazel caught on.

"Probably," Thalia replied.

"Will," Piper said.

"Be," Frank continued.

"In the book." everyone else finished.

Face palm.

**"I Play Pinocle With A Horse."**

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

"Okay, creepy." Apollo sighed.

Hermes mouthed, 'Even by his standards'

"Where did you come up with that, it isn't a demigod dream," Athena questioned.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn,**

"Is that what you taste?" Thalia asked.

"One of many." Percy answered.

** only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

"How does she know about that?" Zeus thundered.

"It'll probably be in the book." Annabeth replied.

**I managed to croak, "What?"**

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."**

"Usually you don't know things according the book." Athena mumbled. She got splashed by a wave.

**Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

"Typical way to shut a boy up." Artemis said, Thalia nodded in agreement.

**The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

"So you did care?" Nico asked.

"Nico!" Hazel scolded, "Stay out of his business!"

"Sorry!" Nico yelled, not sounded sorry at all.

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them-**

Everyone besides the Romans gave him a skeptical look.

** on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. **

"Not the best feeling." Hermes sighed.

**My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

"Also not the best feeling.

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

**My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

**"Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

"Probably hadn't." Dionysus snored.

"Your paying attention?" Leo asked.

"Of course not, Leonardo."

"It's Leo."

"Alright Leon."

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.** .

"So I'm not the only one who calls him Goat Boy!" Thalia yelled.

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And...**

"So oblivious." Athena muttered, while getting splashed.

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

"This is going to be kind of him." Hestia leaned forward.

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

"No, it had been a nightmare and that's just paper mache." Jason said sarcastically.

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

"Idiot." Athena and Annabeth muttered. Only one of them was playfully.

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**

**"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."**

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

**"My mom. Is she really ..."**

**He looked down.**

"So I guess you took that as a yes?" Nico asked.

Everyone yelled "No duh!"

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree **

Thalia looked highly offended.

Everyone snickered.

**on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

"Why would you think that?" Hephaestus asked.

"Because he's the optimistic pessimist, or is it the other way 'round?" Hera replied.

"Around, not 'round." Athena sniffed.

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

"No your not!" Percy, Thalia, Annabeth, and Nico all yell.

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

"Grover, don't curse!" Thalia sighed.

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

"Told ya!"

"No one disagreed with you, cuz." Nico and Percy answered.

"Do you both want to die?"

"Nope."

Once again Frank thought, _Why doesn't he act like this around the Romans._

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.**

**Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

Leo looked mischievous.

"Oh, no you won't!" everyone yelled.

**But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

Poseidon felt sad but realized something. That was not death, he shot a dirty glare at Hades.

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**

"Or you could live at camp." no one knew who said this.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

"Like you could fool anyone to join the army, brat." Ares laughed.

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor goat, satyr, whatever- looked as if he expected to be hit.**

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to ****_protect _****you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

"Oh, good point there." Apollo and Hermes said, "Burn."

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

"But then, how come he could..." Nico started, Thalia smacked her hand on his mouth.

**"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

**"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.**

"What did you do put them in a blender?" Hermes asked.

"Ew," Aphrodite recoiled.

**And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

"Momma's boy." guess who said that.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

"I wonder if a satyr would burn." Annabeth asked thoughtfully.

"Don't try!" Piper yelled.

"Well, Pan was a god, so..."

"A half-animal god."

"You got me there."

Hermes had a face one that said, 'Did she just admit her own burn?'

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home made."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"I really did hate that girl." Artemis mumbled.

Apollo started to sweat.

**"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

"How do you catch your breath," Apollo asked, "I mean, it's air, you can't catch air."

"Stupid." Artemis shot him.

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

Hazel and Frank were taking that all in, "Well, that's different."

"Yep!" the Greeks said cheerfully.

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.**

"Excuse me!" Dionysus was wide awake, like if he won pinocle, but angry.

"Yes?" Percy wore a mask of mock innocence.

"Cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park?"

Everyone couldn't hold in their laughter, Dionysus's face was too funny. They burst into laughs, giggles, squeals, the whole lot.

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.**

"Of course."

**"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite.**

Athena stifled her laughter.

** The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper,**

Annabeth looked offended.

** but she's been here longer than just about anybody.**

And she calmed down.

** And you already know Chiron..."**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

"He just said his name was Chiron and you still call him Mr. Brunner..." Athena sighed. Then she got splashed.

"Bird Brain," Poseidon challenged.

"Not the time." Hestia got in the middle.

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers ****_B_****.**

"Lucky..." Leo, Apollo, and Hermes whined.

"Leo I can understand," Poseidon began, "but you two are gods, school seriously?"

"You remember Olympus Academy!"

*Cricket Cricket*

"Where are those crickets?" Zeus asked.

Hades leaned in, "Did you know," he looked around, "they're on Olympus."

Everyone laughed.

**"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

"Ah, the annual Camp Half Blood greeting." Percy remembered.

Hazel and Frank looked at him weirdly.

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, ****_if _****there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

"Percy," Nico said in a very serious tone, "take off your shoes."

"What?" Percy was confused.

"Just do it!" Nico sounded very urgent.

Percy took off his shoes.

"Mr. D, you aren't a stranger to happy juice." Nico announced.

Thalia pulled him back in his seat.

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

"So I'm still the blond girl after I was called Annabeth," Annabeth sighed.

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. **

**With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, **

"So you were checking her out, Percy?" Leo teased.

"Shut up." Percy's face was red.

**except her eyes ruined the image. **

"What does that mean?" Annabeth and Athena looked offended.

**They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

"Oh, good riddance." Athena told Percy.

"Mom!"

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, ****_You killed a minotaur! _****or ****_Wow, you're so awesome! _****or something like that.**

"Hi, I'm Annabeth Chase, have we met yet?" she told Percy.

"Yes,"

That was all that was needed.

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. **

"Your kid is pure gold!" Hermes was rolling around on the ground.

**"I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

"No, his name is just D." someone said sarcastically.

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

**"Oh. Right. Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, **

Stifles of laughter.

**"I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

**"House call?"**

"Wait for it..." Thalia began.

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."**

"Keep waiting..."

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

"And thus his ego begins to grow." Thalia finished.

"Not fair." Percy pouted.

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. ****We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

"I always feel sorry for the poor kids who don't pass that first test," Aphrodite sighed.

Piper couldn't help but agree with her mom.

The Fates smiled at the small and unnoticed family moment.

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

"You should be, boy." Dionysus snored.

"Sleep-talking." Hephaestus explained.

**"You ****_do _****know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

"Sir!" everyone yelled.

**"I'm afraid not, ****_sir_****," he said.**

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

"Feeling's mutual."

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all ****_civilized _****young men to know the rules."**

"Percy's no where near civilized." Nico laughed.

**"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.**

**"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun- Chiron why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**

"Ego." Apollo sang, "His ego once grew so large,"

"Read!" Artemis yelled.

**Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."**

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.**

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, ****_I _****was his star student. He expected ****_me _****to have the right answer.**

"That's tough." Leo looked apologetic.

**"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**

**"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

"Aw," Hera and Aphrodite squealed.

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. **

Then they glared.

**Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

"You didn't see the orientation film?" Nico asked.

"Nope." Percy answered, popping the 'p'.

"What orientation?" Hazel looked really confused.

"The one were it teaches you to grow up." Thalia began, "Percy didn't see it, we all could get that, but Nico, well, he's Nico."

"Hey!"

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."**

"This'll be good." all the gods leaned forwards.

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, ****_Not! _**

"Not!" Apollo, Hermes, Hephaestus, Leo, and Nico yelled.

"I hate you guys." Percy complained childishly.

**But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**

"Is goat boy being brave?" Thalia asked.

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as god."**

"God-s." was the common answer.

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God- capital ****_G_****, God. That's a different matter altogether.**

"Really?" All the demigods asked.

"Moving on." the gods said hurriedly. Annabeth started to think about the possibilities, _If the Greeks and Romans are real, why not other gods?_

** We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

"How would that be a smaller matter?" Zeus thundered.

"Sit down!" was the most used line of speech.

**"Smaller?"**

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

"Excuse me!" Zeus, Hera, and Apollo yelled.

Percy shrugged sheepishly.

**And there it was again, distant thunder on a cloud less day.**

"Dramatic." coughed Hades and Poseidon.

"Do you have something caught in your throats?"

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're- myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before-"**

_It's coming, oh, don't be an idiot!_ every god and demigod that sat in that room thought.

**"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"**

"Oh, you got the full name." Hermes said in a tattle-tale voice.

**-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody- "what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come ****_so-o-o _****far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

Leo, Nico, Thalia, Hermes, and Apollo were staring at Percy intently.

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't.**

"Well, of course, it's about time, sea spawn." Athena face palmed.

** It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

The Hallelujah chorus came back on.

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that ****_immortal _****means immortal.**

"Duh!" Annabeth exclaimed.

** Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

Athena gaped, Poseidon smirked.

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some day people would call ****_you _****a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

"Why is Chiron trying to make this boy sad again!" Hera seemed very angry. Aphrodite eyes were watering.

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

"That was a long time ago!" Percy yelled at seeing everyone's faces and Annabeth trying to show Percy the people right in front of him.

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

"Must be some shock, then." Athena muttered. She got splashed.

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"**

"You complaining?" Zeus asked, in mock-politeness.

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

The gods gave Dionysus the look.

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

"So he gets the acting from Zeus so what does he get from the other side of the family?" Hades pondered.

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

**More thunder.**

"Dramatic."

"Yeah, yeah," Dionysus feigned interest, "got it the first time around.

**Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

Zeus glared at Dionysus, Hera glared at Zeus.

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

"Because it was from outer space." Frank said.

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. **

Skeptic looks.

**The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-**

Face palm.

** well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you.**

Even more skeptic looks.

** 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

"He does." every single god said.

The Fates looked at each other with a look that said, 'Exactly!'

**"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."**

"Clueless." Athena stammered.

**_"Di immortales, _****Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

Insert the Hallelujah chorus.

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**

"Well duh!" all of the demigods said in unison.

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

"I'm insulted." Aphrodite looked disgusted. Piper had to agree her mom was better sounding than Mr. D.

**"You're a god."**

**"Yes, child."**

**"A god. You."**

Everyone was laughing, rolling on the floor, clutching their stomachs, et cetera.

**He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

"That's not a bad idea." Dionysus looked deep in thought.

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

**"No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

"Yes!" Dionysus yelled.

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

"No!" Dionysus yelled in the same tone.

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, ****_again, _****about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

"Poor satyr." all the females were sad.

"Um, Arty..." Apollo began.

"It's Artemis, thank you," Artemis interrupted, "and he's a satyr, not a boy."

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

"So, when will he start." Hephaestus looked around.

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**

"Used to be."

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in ****_America_****?"**

"No," the gods all said, "we're in Switzerland."

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."**

**"The what?"**

"The west, Percy." Thalia smacked his head.

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite,**

Insert godly headaches here.

** and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."**

**"And then they died."**

Insert Athenaly face palm here.

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture.**

Insert Annabeth owl eyes.

**People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that ****_I _****seemed to be included in Chiron's ****_we, _****as if I were part of some club.**

"It's called the Blood of the Gods club, welcome!" Leo fell to his knees.

"Must of passed through Hephaestus." Poseidon whispered.

**"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?"**

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

"Cover story." no one knew who said this.

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to 'meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be smores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

"We all know!" the Greeks chorused.

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

"Awesome!" Leo yelled.

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

"No, he's part cow."

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

**A.N. I still have a poll up on my profile. Please check it out it doesn't take long.**

**Reviews are dandy,**

**As is cereal,**

**Just look at the poll.**

**Aye, Aye, then. Queen of the Black Order, over and out!**


	9. Up for Adoption: Read for more Info

I've gotten a bad report and I must say, I'm heavily disappointed in this. But I can't change that and since I don't want my account suspended I'll put the story on hold.

If you'd like to adopt this story please PM me. I would like to see this story continued.

If no one wants to take it then I'm sorry, I'll either give up on the story, or maybe in the distant future write it again.

But before I go. I would love to thank DarkSiren49 for telling me all I did wrong, it should help me make a better more legal story.

But the sites call fan fiction for a reason all the unexplained guests.

I'm going to try to make a fanfiction called like The Days They Never Had. This is what it most likely will be about:

The gods never got a proper chance to grow up, as said in the way they act. So what would happen if the gods plus Hades and Hestia were turned into kids with Zeus and Hera as a parent? Check up on it in a week or two!

P.S. Thanks DarkSiren49 I didn't even realize I had used musical lyrics.

QueenoftheBlackOrder, over and out.


	10. Good news!

**I have excellent news, for those of you who like this story, guess what! It's being continued surely by cku5. We just need to work out some kinks and it should be continuing soon!**

**For the last time,**

**Queen of the Black Order, over and out.**


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